The Hell He Saw
"Ahh...!"
The cold, expressionless face Rin had been fixing on the Dogfight leader only a moment before lit up with pure radiance.
What? The Earliest Apocalypse is making a face like that?
For a second he wondered if reinforcements had come through the warp, but the presence he could sense amounted to only three people. And one of them didn't even seem human.
"What is this."
Even as the Dogfight leader kept his eyes locked on Rin, he began to read the beings who had arrived through the warp. For a mage of his caliber — a level of skill that the word "outstanding" couldn't begin to capture — it was no great difficulty.
One of them was already peeling off toward somewhere else. The remaining two were charging straight this way.
What kind of speed is that...
It was astonishing. The sheer velocity of their approach rivaled Horan, the most physically gifted among all of Dogfight.
No — better than that.
One of them was falling behind, unable to keep up, but the one in the lead was still closing the distance without any drop in momentum.
Kill them right now!
His objective was the Earliest Apocalypse standing right in front of him. Killing her would render everything he had done until now meaningless — but that was exactly what he wanted.
Enormous dogs of pure mana lunged toward Rin as she poured out black energy. Magic worthy of the name Dogfight: they didn't simply charge and stop. Like real hunting hounds, they bit down and refused to let go. Once they latched on, mana flowed naturally into the wound, and when enough of it had accumulated, their master could detonate it from within. It looked like a light spell, but it was a sure-kill technique designed to finish an enemy for certain.
Instead, the black energy pouring from Rin began to devour the mana dogs.
"......!"
"So magic can be eaten too."
Rin nodded as if she had just learned something new. Behind her, Tana and Eve had grabbed a club and a pipe from May's room, desperate to help somehow, but they weren't going to be much use.
"No choice, then."
The leader began gathering his mana. A storm of power shook the air as it condensed, and a blue flower bloomed across the sky. The sight was so beautiful that it took a beat too long to realize it was lightning about to crash down on the dormitory.
"This is magic no one can block."
At the very moment he prepared to unleash pure catastrophe—
"......!"
Something came flying from behind. If he hadn't twisted his body, he was certain his head would have left his shoulders. A cold blade grazed his cheek, and a thin line of blood welled and spilled.
"Nice instincts."
Daniel McLane landed squarely in the room with Rin and stepped between the two of them.
That was close.
If that lightning spell had come down, the dormitory and everyone in it would have been wiped out. And if that happened, the Earliest Apocalypse would awaken. We had just barely stopped the end of the world — and still these bastards were making my blood boil.
I felt something off in the mana over at the academy and came running, but...
What the hell was this situation? I had cleaned out one of the Dogfight bases Keyalmirek had pointed us to, and even though it was still early morning, I'd headed straight back to Elgrid. I never expected to walk into a mess like this.
"Daniel! You're back!"
"Who are those guys?"
Rin beamed at me, practically bouncing. Looking at that bright smile, you would never have guessed she had just been using the power the God of Death had given her.
Eve and Tana answered from behind her.
"They're Dogfight. I think we kicked a hornet's nest."
"After you left, we hit a nearby Dogfight outpost and some of their errand runners."
"......!"
I never imagined they'd been doing something like that. I understood they were doing it for me and for Dyna, but it had been far too dangerous. Not that I could scold them for it now — and they had, to their credit, brought the information home in one piece.
"Leave the rest to me."
"Okay."
Rin nodded, turned, and left the room with Eve and Tana. The mage glared at me and began drawing up his mana again.
"So you're the Daniel McLane that Hare talked about."
"She came too?"
I glanced down. Sure enough, I could see her — flinching and ducking behind the guy next to her. I gave her a little wave.
"Then you already know I took out one of your so-called executives, right?"
"......"
I smirked and rested my sword across my shoulder.
"He left a last message for you people. Lucky me — I get to deliver it."
"A last message?"
I smiled at the mage, who looked genuinely interested.
"There's a monster living at Aeos Academy, so you should never, ever come here. That's what he said."
"......"
"Personally, speaking as an Aeos Academy student, I have no idea what he meant. What kind of monster would be hanging around a place where kids study?"
The moment I shrugged, the lightning he had been holding slammed toward me. Because I had interrupted him mid-cast, the power was much reduced — but it was still a serious hit.
I was already leaping straight at him.
"I've been waiting to use this."
I could only handle the barest scrap of mana, so I had spent a long time devising ways to fight mages. Provoking them into casting was the most basic method — and, depending on the opponent, one of the most efficient. Even the simple motion of extending a hand to shape a spell was enough to read the trajectory of the attack.
I was already clear of the lightning before it ever landed, and I brought my sword down hard on his shoulder.
"......!"
He scrambled a barrier into place, but a hastily thrown-together protection spell was nothing I couldn't smash through with raw strength. This time it wasn't a single drop of blood like the first graze — enough poured out to soak both hands.
The mage, who had been floating, finally lost his hold and started to fall. I climbed on top of him and kept driving the blade deeper—
"You son of a bitch!"
The woman with tiger ears below us lunged in and snatched the mage away.
"Leader! Leader, are you all right?!"
"H-Horan! Treatment first — please!"
Horan clutched the mage and sobbed while Hare scrambled for a potion.
"Leader?"
I was annoyed I hadn't finished off a mage of that caliber on the spot — but a far more interesting word had just reached my ears.
That guy was the leader?
"So he's the boss of Dogfight."
The moment I started toward them, I saw a man whose right sleeve was glowing green. Gaunt, half-starved looking. Clearly another Dogfight member — but the important part was that shining hand.
"So that's why no one could use mana."
I had been wondering why the headmaster and the other top-tier professors hadn't simply crushed a group this size with magic. The answer was a miracle flower that rendered every mage completely helpless. Even in the Demon World Forest, a place overflowing with rare herbs and jewels, it was a treasure among treasures.
"Arianne's Flower, huh?"
"......!"
I had no idea how they had gotten their hands on a flower so rare that its mere existence erased the mana around it — but a smile tugged at my mouth before I could stop it.
"I was too lazy to go get one myself. Perfect timing."
One of the easiest and most reliable methods I had always used for hunting mages was Arianne's Flower. Mages who couldn't touch mana were nothing more than stick-wielding weaklings. It had been an extremely useful tool.
But how does that guy have one?
There was no way two Arianne's Flowers were blooming at once, and I had only received mine after being acknowledged by him...
Well. Whatever.
"Eris!"
With every eye on me, I called her name. Eris's blade, riding the wind, appeared behind the man holding the flower and drove into his shoulder.
"Ghk—!"
"Wh-What?!"
I had told her to prepare an ambush the moment she arrived, just in case — and she had timed it perfectly. I cut through the panicking Dogfight members and charged the man with the flower myself. Once this was handled, the rest of the fight would be easy. From the headmaster on down, countless mages had been waiting for someone to fix this bizarre phenomenon that had snuffed out their mana like a fire underfoot.
And then—
"What?"
The man thrashing on Eris's blade twisted hard enough that the inside of his sleeve finally came into view. I had assumed he was simply holding an Arianne's Flower. He wasn't.
"It's grafted onto his hand?"
His entire hand had been turned into the flower. I cut it off without hesitation.
"Aaaargh!"
I ignored him as he rolled on the floor in agony and checked the flower that had been his hand.
"That flower was the one erasing the mana, right?"
"Yeah, it was... but it's a dud."
"A dud?"
"Look. The stem's already dying."
The moment it left his body, it had started to wither. The mana that had vanished wouldn't come back instantly, but we had broken the flower — so with a little time, this fight was ours.
There were still plenty of questions. How had they managed to plant an Arianne's Flower into a human hand? And how could that so-called leader still cast magic even with the flower present?
"You can all explain it nice and cozy from behind iron bars."
I smiled and started walking toward them. The leader, finally back on his feet with help, found his voice and shouted.
"You fool! Do you even know what you're protecting right now?!"
"The Earliest Apocalypse?"
He looked startled that I already knew the answer. He had gotten his information from the witches of the Black Forest, so of course he would recognize Rin the moment he saw her.
"I'd like to ask you something myself. What exactly do you know about Rin?"
Judging by the fact that he had tried to kill her, he didn't seem to know what I knew — that the moment she died, the end of the world began. At my question, fear flooded the leader's face, then shifted into the look of a martyr preaching gospel to a flock of the damned.
"I SAW IT! The catastrophe that bitch will create ten years from now! Corpses covering the world! The dead rising again to slaughter the living! That living hell! Do you know it?!"
"......What?"
It hit me like a hammer blow to the skull.
How the hell did he know that?
"You... just what are you—"
I stepped forward, about to demand answers again, when something dropped between us. A massive horn jutted from her forehead. Wings spread wide. A tail swept the floor.
"Sis?"
Dyna McLane — my older sister — snarled like a beast and turned her claws toward me.